British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme

Michelle Welsh Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

Before I start, I declare an interest in this debate as a member of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme, which, for the purpose of this debate, I will refer to as the BCSSS. Before I go on, I want to say a special thanks to the BCSSS Facebook campaign group, which has been a great source of support and advice. The group represents more than 2,500 scheme members, and I am sure many will be watching this debate right now.

All the arguments for a fairer deal for BCSSS members have been heard before, so I want to take this opportunity to speak as an ex-coalminer, and as the only member of the BCSSS, I think, in this Parliament—and yes, I have a financial interest in this, but I feel that I am qualified to speak up on behalf of members of the BCSSS. I know that he hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery), another ex-coalminer, is present; I am sure he will support many of the things I have to say.

I am the last generation of coalminers in my family. I followed my dad, my granddad, my great-grandads and my great-great-grandads into the pits in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. In fact, I cannot think of any male family member before me who did not spend some time underground.

I worked at four different pits. Miners will usually say that the best pit they worked at was their first pit, and my first pit was Sutton colliery in Ashfield, north Nottinghamshire. I started there about a year after the miners’ strike in the 1980s. It was a great pit, but this was a pit where, sadly, just a few decades earlier, five men had been killed in an explosion. I went on to do my coalface training at Creswell colliery in Derbyshire, where in 1950, yet another disaster had occurred: 80 boys and men lost their lives in an underground fire. We have had countless disasters, horrific accidents and nasty things going on, but still men and boys went down the pit—the black hole—to do a shift, digging coal out to fuel our nation.

It is hard to describe what it is like to work underground; there is nothing like it. It is dark and dangerous. It can be red hot in some places, yet freezing cold in others. There are no toilets, as the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington can tell us. We just had to dig a hole and then cover it up. It is hard to explain what it is like crawling up and down a coalface, which is 29 inches high and 250 yards long, with a shearing machine spitting out coal, dust, heat and oil. It was a horrible feeling.

It is hard to explain what it is like to carry a steel ring on your shoulder—a girder—with your mate, on uneven ground and in dusty conditions. It is hard to explain what it is like to bandage up a workmate who has just been trapped, has had a big chunk ripped out of him and has lost a few fingers and half a foot. He has to be put on a stretcher and carried out to the pit bottom. On one occasion, that was seven miles of the pit—seven miles underground. That is from here to the edge of London.

But that is what we did—we did that for a living, day in, day out. We didn’t moan. Towards the end of my mining career—the last three years of it—I worked as a deputy underground. I was responsible for the health and safety of the men in my district. When I became a deputy, I was transferred from the mineworkers’ pension scheme to the BCSSS. I did not have any say in it; they just put me in it. That is what they did. While we continued working—digging the coal to fuel the nation and keep the lights on—all we asked for was a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. The pits are long gone now, but there are still thousands of ex-miners and their widows in the coalfield communities—

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

My constituency of Sherwood Forest has the second largest BCSSS membership in the country. Almost 40% of the membership is women—women who were formerly employed in the mining industry, and women who were the spouses of members who have sadly died. Does the hon. Member agree that it is vital that the Government deliver justice for this scheme not only for constituencies such ours in Nottinghamshire but also for women?

[Lee Anderson]

Yes, I will come on to the women who worked in our industry a bit later, but the hon. Lady is absolutely correct. All we ask for now that the pits have gone—we still have the communities—is a fair day’s pay from our own pot of money. That pot of money is the £2.3 billion investment reserve fund. That is our money. We paid it in. All we are asking is for the Government to give it back to us.